Synesthesia is a perceptual condition in which information between the senses is blended. Our laboratory is working to understand synesthesia from three angles. First, we have collected and rigorously verified over 20,000 synesthetes (Novich, Cheng, Eagleman, 2011). Second, we are performing high-throughput neuroimaging to understand the small differences in brain circuitry that cause synesthesia (Tomson et al, 2012, in preparation). Finally, we are performing a family linkage analysis to pull the gene for synethesia (Tomson et al, 2011).

To speed and standardize the study of synesthesia, we have developed a standardized battery for testing and quantifying the phenomenon at synesthete.org. This battery of questionnaires and online software is free and open to the public, and provides a rigorous, standardized scoring system. Do you think you might be a synesthete? Go to synesthete.org to find out. Are you a researcher? Have your test subjects enter your email in the 'Share results with a researcher?' field, and you will be automatically emailed a link to view their results.

Here's what Oliver Sacks writes about the book:"Twenty years ago, synesthesia - the automatic conjoining of two or more senses - was regarded by scientists (if at all) as a rare curiosity. We now know that perhaps one person in twenty is synesthetic, and so we must regard it as an essential, and fascinating, part of the human experience. Indeed, it may well be the basis and inspiration for much of human imagination and metaphor. No one has done more than Richard Cytowic and David Eagleman to bring a careful neuroscientific attention to synesthesia, grounded in decades of research and reports from thousands of patients. Their work has changed the way we think of the human brain, and Wednesday Is Indigo Blue is a unique and indispensable guide for anyone interested in how we perceive the world."

FromtheBlog

Francis Crick, one of the premier biologists of the 20th century, passed away July 28, 2004, in San Diego. On his 88th birthday last June, I brought him chocolates and spent the day with him in his home in La Jolla.